I have had my TiVo HD since it first came out and never had any issues whatsoever. Here recently I upgraded to a new TiVo for the living room and put the TiVo HD in the bedroom. That is when all the trouble started...

Days after I put it in the bedroom, I began to notice that it would be frozen/locked up when I would turn on the TV. The remote does not work and the picture would be frozen. It would miss recordings and everything. This would happen randomly, not every single time...

My first solution was to try another HDMI cable, because I had just used a cheap thin one I had lying around. That actually seemed to work for a while (not sure why), but then it started doing it again. At that point, I thought it was the hard drive, because of the age of the unit. So I bought a WD Red drive and replaced it. I thought finally I had it fixed, but 2 days after getting the new hard drive installed it began to do it again...

I actually think it is doing it more frequently now then it had previously. Every night when I turn on the bedroom TV, the TiVo is frozen. We are going on 8 nights in a row here.

I thought it may have had to do something with it connecting to the TiVo service, but it does that fine on its own and when I try it manually. And I am almost 100% sure it does not lock up at the same time every night or anything like that because I have just left the TV on all night and it will never freeze. Just to be clear, it never freezes while watching TV. So this makes me think it has something to do with the TV. It is a LG 60PA6500 TV.

There's no way for the TV to affect the Tivo. The Tivo has no way to know what its outputs are connected to.

First thing I would try is replacing the cables from your source (antenna or Cable outlet). Garbage in, garbage out.

Second thing I would try is "Clear Program Data and ToDo list". This forces the Tivo to update the program data. In previous models, the program data could become corrupted and cause all sorts of strange behavior. Happened on my Series 2 HR10. When you copied the old drive to the new drive, then your second drive may have inherited a corrupted program data base from the first.

If that doesn't work, pull the drive and run FULL diagnostics from the manufacturer. Do this for both drives if you have the original one. If they pass, it leaves the power supply or the main board of the Tivo. You can replace a power supply for under $100 (less for a used one). Obviously, if it's the main board, you're out of luck.

I have had my TiVo HD since it first came out and never had any issues whatsoever. Here recently I upgraded to a new TiVo for the living room and put the TiVo HD in the bedroom. That is when all the trouble started...

Days after I put it in the bedroom, I began to notice that it would be frozen/locked up when I would turn on the TV. The remote does not work and the picture would be frozen. It would miss recordings and everything. This would happen randomly, not every single time...

This is probably a long shot, but make sure all your outlets are properly grounded and that everything (outlets, network cables, coax shields) is connected to the same grounding point. Varying ground levels can cause strange problems.

I have had my TiVo HD since it first came out and never had any issues whatsoever. Here recently I upgraded to a new TiVo for the living room and put the TiVo HD in the bedroom. That is when all the trouble started...

Days after I put it in the bedroom, I began to notice that it would be frozen/locked up when I would turn on the TV. The remote does not work and the picture would be frozen. It would miss recordings and everything. This would happen randomly, not every single time...

My first solution was to try another HDMI cable, because I had just used a cheap thin one I had lying around. That actually seemed to work for a while (not sure why), but then it started doing it again. At that point, I thought it was the hard drive, because of the age of the unit. So I bought a WD Red drive and replaced it. I thought finally I had it fixed, but 2 days after getting the new hard drive installed it began to do it again...

I actually think it is doing it more frequently now then it had previously. Every night when I turn on the bedroom TV, the TiVo is frozen. We are going on 8 nights in a row here.

I thought it may have had to do something with it connecting to the TiVo service, but it does that fine on its own and when I try it manually. And I am almost 100% sure it does not lock up at the same time every night or anything like that because I have just left the TV on all night and it will never freeze. Just to be clear, it never freezes while watching TV. So this makes me think it has something to do with the TV. It is a LG 60PA6500 TV.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

Borrow a voltmeter from someone and check the yellow wire for +12V relative to the black wires, the red for +5V, and the orange for +3.3V.

Even if none of the power supply caps show any signs of bulging or leakage the fact that it's newer than a Series 1 and older than a Series 4 makes power supply problems due to "capacitor plague" very likely, and that can cause all sorts of strange symptoms.

Fortunately you're only looking at about ten to fifteen bucks for new replacement low ESR caps rated at 105 degrees C.

I know you guys are talking about the power supply and the capacitors being a common issue, but does that really fit what is going on here (maybe it does)?

I mean I have left the TV on for 24 hours and not had a single issue, but if I turn off the TV and a few hours later turn it back on -- then it will be frozen...

I just did a little research and turns out there is like 3 firmware update for my TV and 2 of them address errors with HDMI handshake & protocol. I am going to try to update the TV tonight and then report back here.

I have a power supply from a Tivo HD I received yesterday sitting on my desk. Out of curiosity, I measured the voltages with a multimeter. There are no visible signs of capacitor failure but when I measured the voltages, I got 3.34, 4.73, and 11.1V with a HDD connected.

I have a power supply from a Tivo HD I received yesterday sitting on my desk. Out of curiosity, I measured the voltages with a multimeter. There are no visible signs of capacitor failure but when I measured the voltages, I got 3.34, 4.73, and 11.1V with a HDD connected.

I have a power supply from a Tivo HD I received yesterday sitting on my desk. Out of curiosity, I measured the voltages with a multimeter. There are no visible signs of capacitor failure but when I measured the voltages, I got 3.34, 4.73, and 11.1V with a HDD connected.

You should be a little closer to 5 and 12 than that, especially 12.

And if it measures higher with the drive disconnected, that means it's not voltage regulating properly, which would be another indication of problems.

So go ahead and re-cap it and be done with it.

(sooner or later it's going to need it done anyway)

That way, if any further troubleshooting is necessary, you know for sure that it's not the power supply.

If your Tivo power supply is going bad, turning on or off the tv that it's attached to can cause a brief power surge that the power supply can't handle. Remember, there are two connections in common with with TV and tivo, the hdmi cable and the AC outlet which both are probably plugged into gather. Newer flat panel televisions don't pull as much power as the old crt type did but they still pull a lot esp when powered on.

It might be the hdmi cable but most likely if out of the blue and since the Tivo is old, it's the TiVo's power supply.

I ended up having to stay at work an extra 2 hours, so I did not get a chance to disassemble the TiVo... However, I did go ahead and update the TV firmware (already had the USB drive ready) and I was able to turn on the TV without the TiVo being frozen for the first time in about 8 days.

I think it was just coincidence though because when I turned on the TV to flash the firmware, it was not frozen either (there was about a 4 hour difference between the 2 times)...

Anyway, if I am going to open it up again then I am just going to replace the caps. But I will post on here what I find...

But if nothing changed and your TV and tivo HD has been working fine, why would you assume it's the tv' firmware fault if out of the blue the Tivo is locked up? While it appears the tv locks up when you turn the tv on, you don't know if the Tivo was already locked up before you turn the tv back on. Just playing the Devils advocate......

Just had a similar problem with a S3 HD I picked up a while ago. Freeze or reboot on start.

I pulled the power supply out of one of my extra S3 HD's with no service put it in the balky unit and the thing runs like a dream again.

I would recommend just buying a couple of spare part S3 HD's off of Craigs List if you don't want to go the soldering route.

I bought 3 Tivos (1 Premiere and 2 S3 HD's) for a total of $30 (for all) not that long ago as spares. Bonus was that the two S3's had lifetime on them, so I ended up buying another S3 HD for a spare part unit and sold the other two. :-)

Well between work and having a newborn, I have had no free time to look at the power supply until now.

I just opened it up and expected to see a couple of bulging capaictors, but I cannot spot a single one. And get this, I brought the TiVo up to work so I would actually get it done today but I forgot the power cable... So no testing the voltages.....

There are two different ones used in a THD. At one time I copied them into a separate file for when I needed to make an order, so I don't have the thread this came from, but Scott deserves the credt:

Quote:

That appears to match what's in my TiVo HD. Note that I've only replaced the capacitors in one of my S3 OLED's but while I was upgrading the hard drive in our TiVo HD, I wrote down the capacitor information for future reference.

Well I was able to use about 5 of the capacitors that I ordered, but the other ~5 I am going to still have to order from Digikey.

Maybe one of the 5 I replaced was the culprit.... (I really doubt it though -- I think it is probably one of three of the 2200uF 16V caps)

Also, just wanted to point out that there are actually 10 electrolytic capacitors on the AcBel power supply... the above list only list 6 of them... I am not sure why the other 4 are omitted...

The big one, rated at 200V, is left out because it doesn't have to work very hard at a high frequency like the medium sized ones near the heat sink(s), and probably isn't a low ESR 105 Degree C cap in the first place--it just filters 60Hz AC (which probably looks like 120Hz once it goes through the bridge rectifier, but that's still a very low frequency from a capacitor's point of view).

I haven't actually dissected one of these supplies and hand drawn a schematic and figured out exactly what every part does, but the little ones not clustered near the heat sink(s) don't handle the heavy switched currents like the medium sized ones, so they aren't particularly stressed either, and are unlikely to fail prematurely.

Well I went ahead and replaced all the capacitors just to make sure. When I had replaced the first 5 (the ones that just happened to be the same or close for the other brand power supply), I still had the TiVo lock up twice. So I know for sure that one of the caps that did not get replaced must have been the issue. Tonight was the first night since all the caps have been replaced and it has not been frozen.

However, it just randomly restarted. It has done this quite often and I was just hoping that the freezing issue and the random reboot were related. Well I guess not. Weird thing is, it always restarts between midnight and 2am...

Well I went ahead and replaced all the capacitors just to make sure. When I had replaced the first 5 (the ones that just happened to be the same or close for the other brand power supply), I still had the TiVo lock up twice. So I know for sure that one of the caps that did not get replaced must have been the issue. Tonight was the first night since all the caps have been replaced and it has not been frozen.

However, it just randomly restarted. It has done this quite often and I was just hoping that the freezing issue and the random reboot were related. Well I guess not. Weird thing is, it always restarts between midnight and 2am...

Do you have the TiVo plugged into a UPS?

(helps eliminate blips on the power line as a possible cause)

Try it without anything hooked to the TiVo's HDMI output for a few days, and see if eliminating the Spawn of Satan makes a difference.

Well it is not locking up so far. It has been less than 24 hours though. But it is still randomly restarting around the same time frame every night. I can do the HDMI like you suggested, but how will I know if it restarts?